Carter later threatened to use legal means to keep U.S. athletes from participating in the 1980 Games. AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi

March 21, 2014

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March 21, 1980: President Jimmy Carter told the U.S. Olympic team that he was ordering a boycott of the Summer Games in Moscow. Carter's boycott of the Moscow Olympics was retaliation for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Kremlin rejection of his demand to pull out. Carter also cut off grain shipments to the Soviets and banned Soviet fishing boats from U.S. territorial waters. The Soviets retaliated for the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics by boycotting the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.